What is a cultigen?
Q: What is a cultigen?
A: A cultigen is a plant that has been artificially selected by humans.
Q: Who first used the term "cultigen"?
A: Liberty Hyde Bailey, an American botanist, was the first to use the term in 1918.
Q: Why did Bailey find Linné's classification system inadequate for cultigens?
A: Bailey found that Linné's classification system did not work for plants that were the result of human cultivation and selection.
Q: What did Bailey call plants that grow in the wild without human selection?
A: Bailey called plants that grow in the wild without human selection "indigens".
Q: Can a cultigen always be placed in the traditional Linnean system of botanical classification?
A: No, a cultigen cannot always be placed in the traditional Linnean system of botanical classification.
Q: How did Bailey originally define a cultigen?
A: Bailey originally defined a cultigen as "a domesticated group of which the origin may be unknown...[It has] such characters as to separate it from known indigens, and is probably not represented by any type specimen or exact description".
Q: Can you give examples of cultigens?
A: Examples of cultigens include maize and cabbage.
